1.1.6-Sophia-sol
Brick!club 1.1.6 - Who guarded his house for him A day late, I know — I’m sorry! I got caught up yesterday doing other things. Other people have already said lots of excellent things about this chapter, so I’m just going to mention some of the other things that caught my attention. 1. I am glad for the one year of German I took in university, because it means that I know in Europe the “first floor” is the floor ABOVE the ground floor, rather than being synonymous with the ground floor, otherwise I would have been very confused in the description of Myriel’s house. 2. “Relieved the embarrassment of the situation" (when there are too many people) — I love this way of phrasing it. 3. wow hang on, five hundred francs for the furniture set? Isn’t that the same as Mlle Baptistine’s ENTIRE YEARLY LIVING ALLOWANCE? She seems to be aiming PRETTY HIGH with her dreams there! (not that there’s anything wrong with that! I’m just astonished.) 4. “the utensils of the toilet, which still betrayed the elegant habits of the man of the world" OHHHHHHH INTERESTING! And now I deeply want to know about the habits of a man of the world of the time and how obvious his careful hygiene habits were to people who saw him. 5. Hugo, you have a tendency of saying “this is really easy to present to the reader’s imagination in a way that makes sense!” and then being a TOTAL LIAR. (cf the Waterloo digression…..) Okay so I can more or less picture the items in Myriel’s bedroom, but the location of everything relative to each other you have NOT MADE CLEAR. 6. Oh hey, Myriel has a four-square garden! 7. With “''a gentle malice''" Mme Magloire speaks to Myriel about the flower garden. I love these little hints of how the household gets along together imperfectly! Because dude, I love Myriel but I WOULD NOT WANT TO LIVE WITH HIM. 8. “''He was not as hostile to insects as a gardener could have wished to see him.'' " Awwwwwww I am enjoying comparing his perspective on gardening with that of Mabeuf. Myriel and Mabeuf both love books and gardens, but Myriel leaves the books behind when he gardens, preferring to just putter about and enjoy himself, whereas Mabeuf’s intellectual activities and his gardening are intrinsically connected. I think Myriel and Mabeuf are the only real gardeners (those who garden for its own sake rather than just because they need the food it produces) mentioned in the brick? Are there any others? 9. “There is a bravery of the priest as well as the bravery of a colonel of dragoons,—only,” he added, “ours must be tranquil.” Is there any tranquility at the barricade, I am now wondering? I can’t recall. Commentary Sarah1281 Well, Valjean gardens in the convent and he enjoys it. He doesn’t garden afterwards because he’s worried about spending too much time in the garden where people on the street can see him and perhaps recognize him. And maybe the sister’s dream costs about as much as her yearly income but that yearly income is really not enough to get by without living in poverty so it’s not as extravagant as it could be. Sophia-sol (reply to Sarah1281) lololol I FORGOT ALL ABOUT FAUCHELEVENT AND VALJEAN, good work Sophia. Thanks for pointing that out, Sarah! and that’s a good point about the furniture and the yearly income; I’d forgotten about just how meagre her 500 francs is. (gdi ALL THE CONVERSATION WE HAD THIS WEEK about money and I STILL DONT’ HAVE A GOOD HANDLE ON IT…..) Doeskin-pantaloons Jean Prouvaire gardens, on a small kind of scale, right?